Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1887-04-18
and the ehisel and will cut an honest
epitaph: Here hes the victim of dissipa-
ting asso1 1iationsr'

ana the chlsel and i Will cut an honest
epitaph: Here hes the victim of dissipa-
ting assoliationsr'
ANOTHER TEST
by which you can find whether your secret
society is right or wrong is the effect it has
on your secular occupation. | can under
stand how, through such an institution, a
man can reach commercial success. ]
know some men have formed their best
business relations through such a channel.
II the secret society has advantaged you in
an honorable calling il is good one. But
has your credit failed? Are bal, ,nin max
ers more anxious how they trust you with
a bale of goods? Have the men whose
names were down in the commercial agency
! A before they entered the society been
going down since in commercial standing {?
Then look out You and / every day
know of commercial establishments going
to ruin through the social excesses of one
or two members, their fortunes beaten to
death with ball-players' bat, or cut amid
ships with the front prov of the regatta, or
going down under the swift hoofs of the
fast horses, or drowned in the large pota-
tiOns of cOgnac or Madeira. That Sc
cret society was the Loeb Earn. Their
business was the Vile de Havre. They
struck, and the Vile de Havre went
under ~
The third test by which you may know
whether the society to which yOu belong is
good or bad is this: What is its effect on
your sense of moral and religious obliga.
! tiOn? Now, if should take the names of
all the people in this audience this morn
| ing and put them on a roll hack of this
organ, and hundred years from now some
one should take that roll and call il from
A to there would not one of you an
swer. ] say that any society that makes
me forget that fact isa bad society. When
| 90 to Chicago am sometimes perplexed
at Buffalo, as IsuppOse many travellers are,
as to whether it is better to take the Lake
Shore route or the Michigan Central,
equally expeditions and equally safe, get
ting to their destination at the same time
But suppose that hear that on one route
the track is torn up, the bridges are down
and the switches are unlocked, it will not
take me great while to decide which
road to take. Now, here are
TWO ROADS IN THE FUTURE
the Christian and the unchristian, the
safe and the unsafe. Any institution or
any association that confuses my ideas in
regard to that fact is bad institution and
bad association. had prayers before /
joined that society, did have them after
ward? | attended the house of God before
! connected myself with that union, do ]
absent myself from religious influences?
Which would you rather have in yOur hand
when you come to die-a pack OF cards or
q Bible? Which would yOu rather have
pressed to your lips in the closing moment
the cup of Belshazzarean wassail or the
Chalice Of Christian communion? Who
would you rather have for your pail
bearerS-the elders of a Christian church
or the companions whose conversation was
full of slang and innuendo ?HsWho would
you rather have for your eternal companions
those men VINO spend their evenings bet
ting, gambling, swearing, carOusing and
telling VIE stories, or your little child,
that bright girl whom the Lord took?
oh, you would not have been away so
much nights, would yOu, if you bad known
she was going away so soon? Dear me,
your house has never been the same place
|
up, she has never got over it. She never
will get over it. How long the evenings
are with no one to put to bed, and no one
to whom to tell the beautiful Bible stories
What pity it is that You cannot
SPEND MORE EVENINGS AT HOME
in trying To help her bear that sorrow.
| You can never drown that grief in the
|
from the little arms that used to be flung
around your neck when she used TO say:
Papa, do stay with me tonight. Do
stay with me tonight" You will never
be able to wipe away from Your lips the
dying kiss OF your little girl. The fascina.
ton of bad secret society is so great that
sometimes a man has turned his back on
his home when his child was dying of scar
let fever. He went away. Before he got
back at midnight the eyes had been closed
the undertaken had done his work, and
the wife, worn out with three weeks
watching, lay unconscious in the next
room. Then the returned father comes
upstairs, and he sees the cradle gone and
the windows up, aud says: What is the
matter" On the Judgment Day he will
find out what was the matter.
Oh man astray, God help you! ] am
going to make very stout rope. You
know that sometimes a rOpemaker will
take very small threads and wind them
together until after while they become
ship cable. And am going to take some
very small delicate threads and wind them
together until they make very
I tal al a
memories of the marriage day-a thread
of laughter, a thread of light, thread of
music, thread Of banqueting, thread of
congratulatiOn, and | twist them together
and / have one strand. Then ! take a
thread of the hour Of the first advent in
your house, a thread of the darkness that
preceded, and thread of the light that
| followed; and thread Of the beautiful
scarf that little child used to wear when
she bounded out at eventide TO greet you;
and then a thread of the beautiful dress
in which you laid her away for
the resurrectiOn; and then | twist
all these threads together, and
III have another strand. Then
| take thread of the scarlet robe OF a suf-
fering Christ, and "A thread of the white
Tallnent Ol ybuI loNCu OhSo "N'N'N
throne, and string OF the harp cherubic,
and string of the harp seraphic, and ]
twist them all together, aud have third
strand. "O," you say, "either strand Is
enough to hold fasta world ~ No; | will
take these strands and will twist them
together, and one end of that rope ! will
fasten, not to the communion table, for it
shall be removed not TO a pillar OF the
organ, for that will crumble in the ages
but wind it round and round the cross OF
q sympathizing Christ, and, having fasten-
ed one end OF the rope to the cross, !
throw the other end to you. Lay hold oil
it! Pull for your life! Pull for Heaven
Give the Father n Chance.
BALTIMORE, April lG.-Thomas lib